Why was Joe Biden's campaign always expected to collapse through 2019?

[President Johnson]

I remember that both in the media and substantial parts of Atlas thought Joe Biden's campaign would inevitably collapse or implode as soon as announced. Despite the fact that he constantly led in the polls and bounced back after some hits it was always insisted he wouldn't stand a chance. How did that come? Did people think his leads were just built in name recognition in a crowded field, that - once down to few candidates - would not expand beyond 25-30% support? Or because it was expected his gaffes would finish him off in a time of more political correctness?

In some ways, it was actually comparable to Trump in 2015 and into 2016, when his inevitable collapse was projected; which, of course, never happened.

[TML]

Other Democratic primary candidates had the chance to go after Biden aggressively but didn't. If you look at how the primaries played out during 2019, you will notice that no decisive blows were landed on Biden during 2019; he could have been out had his opponents been more aggressive in going after him (e.g. Elizabeth Warren could have pointed out that her getting into politics was motivated by things that Biden had supported; instead, she pulled her punches and didn't do better than third place in any contest).

[darklordoftech]

Other Democratic primary candidates had the chance to go after Biden aggressively but didn't. If you look at how the primaries played out during 2019, you will notice that no decisive blows were landed on Biden during 2019; he could have been out had his opponents been more aggressive in going after him (e.g. Elizabeth Warren could have pointed out that her getting into politics was motivated by things that Biden had supported; instead, she pulled her punches and didn't do better than third place in any contest).

The other candidates attacked each other, and those conflicts sucked up the media attention while Biden seemed to be above it all.

[Roll Roons]

A lot of people, myself included, thought his age would catch up to him. Personally, I also thought he might make some Todd Akin-level gaffe or that his history of touchy-feeliness would be a problem in the #MeToo era.

[Tartarus Sauce]

Other Democratic primary candidates had the chance to go after Biden aggressively but didn't. If you look at how the primaries played out during 2019, you will notice that no decisive blows were landed on Biden during 2019; he could have been out had his opponents been more aggressive in going after him (e.g. Elizabeth Warren could have pointed out that her getting into politics was motivated by things that Biden had supported; instead, she pulled her punches and didn't do better than third place in any contest).

This dynamic of all the other Democratic candidates attacking each other instead of Biden occurred precisely because of the fact that the dominant media narrative was that the Biden campaign would eventually be subsumed by whichever non-Bernie candidate came out ahead. That never happened since they kept fracturing the non-Bernie vote without anybody being able to dominate, and as super-Tuesday approached, they all realized that Bernie had the chance to pull ahead if the establishment base didn't rally behind Biden. So they folded and Biden romped.

A big reason why none of the other candidates could establish themselves as the alternative choice between Sanders and Biden is because both had strong bases of support that wouldn't move to other candidates. For Bernie it was diehard progressives and a sizeable portion of Hispanics, for Biden it was blacks (him locking the vast majority of black voters down was arguably the death blow for all other candidates) and old guard moderate boomers. The other half-dozen serious candidates (and additional dozen non-serious) kept splitting the remaining swingy moderates and liberals. None of them had a real chance to consolidate the remaining portion of the primary electorate because Biden and Bernie siphoned off too many unpersuadable voters.

[brucejoel99]

A lot of it can honestly just be chalked up to wishful thinking: for a number of reasons, many people wanted his campaign to collapse, & so they expected it to as well. It also didn't help that not only did people feel that he was weaker than Hillary given his well-known history as a walking-&-talking gaffe machine, that the presumption that his support in the polls was based on nothing more than pure name-recognition, & that his having to face a lot more competition than she did would be his ultimate doom, but the punditry & prognosticators focused wayyy too much on Twitter sh*t (i.e., the Squad, Rose Twitter, dEmS iN dIsArRaY, etc.), which isn't real life, but nevertheless, the overexposure thereof convinced many people that the progressive wing constituted a bigger portion of the Democratic base than it really did, thereby convincing many people that Biden's campaign would obviously have to collapse sooner-or-later given such demographics & the fact that he carried little-to-no evident progressive energy &/or even enthusiasm of any particularly notable kind in support of his campaign.

Of course, none of this mentions that he arguably did collapse, but just came back from it by making it to SC & winding up as the only remaining alternative to a political revolution that wasn't supported by a majority of the Democratic Party base. But in any event, it's just remarkable how "Biden will collapse in 2020" was just a repeat of "Trump will collapse in 2016."

[Motorcity]

Because the media is stupid. They pretend their interests are real. Look at all the attention Klobuchar and Buttigieg got. They thought if they gave them a lot of attention, they would win. They didnt care for Biden because he is old

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The other candidates were too coward to really go after Biden. Castro did once, and he got massive blowback. And anyone pointing out all the things Biden did didn't sound credible because there's no way that the front runner for the Democrats in 2020 would have pushed hard for mass incarceration, voted to constitutionally ban abortion, and so on, right?

[darklordoftech]

The other candidates were too coward to really go after Biden. Castro did once, and he got massive blowback. And anyone pointing out all the things Biden did didn't sound credible because there's no way that the front runner for the Democrats in 2020 would have pushed hard for mass incarceration, voted to constitutionally ban abortion, and so on, right?

This is why I fear that if Biden vetoes a bill that would repeal the federal ban on marijuana, it will impossible to call him out on it.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Wishful thinking.

Once Harris dropped out the nomination was Biden's. Nobody was there to capitalize on the Black vote.

It's funny how IA/NH/NV were completely irrelevant. Black women choose the nominee.

[TML]

Wishful thinking.

Once Harris dropped out the nomination was Biden's. Nobody was there to capitalize on the Black vote.

It's funny how IA/NH/NV were completely irrelevant. Black women choose the nominee.

That's not the whole story. Both Harris and Warren were top-tier candidates at some point, when they focused on economic populism. Their standings fell when they shifted their focus to social issues/identity politics. Had they stayed focused on economic populism, they might have been the beneficiaries instead of Biden when it came time for the establishment to coalesce around a single candidate.

In terms of going after other opponents, remember how Obama won the 2008 nomination - he did so by aggressively going after Hillary's track record, and never backing down. Not even my preferred candidate was anywhere near as aggressive in going after Biden as Obama was against Hillary in 2008 - so let that serve as a lesson for any future primary candidate wanting to come out on top.

[Motorcity]

That said, what was the media obession with Klobuchar and Buttigieg

[Tartarus Sauce]

Wishful thinking.

Once Harris dropped out the nomination was Biden's. Nobody was there to capitalize on the Black vote.

It's funny how IA/NH/NV were completely irrelevant. Black women choose the nominee.

That's not the whole story. Both Harris and Warren were top-tier candidates at some point, when they focused on economic populism. Their standings fell when they shifted their focus to social issues/identity politics. Had they stayed focused on economic populism, they might have been the beneficiaries instead of Biden when it came time for the establishment to coalesce around a single candidate.

In terms of going after other opponents, remember how Obama won the 2008 nomination - he did so by aggressively going after Hillary's track record, and never backing down. Not even my preferred candidate was anywhere near as aggressive in going after Biden as Obama was against Hillary in 2008 - so let that serve as a lesson for any future primary candidate wanting to come out on top.

Harris was only a top tier candidate because of her first debate performance, where she executed the only serious offensive against Biden the entire primary. She promptly squandered the limelight because her campaign had no cohesive vision for what her candidacy's broader vision entailed. She was able to generate attention due to California money and politico backing and a punchy media moment. Once the buzz faded, her candidacy collapsed into irrelevancy because she had no strategy to capitalize on her initial success. I certainly never remember her being associated with populist attitudes, she was the quintessential establishment backed, focus-group tested candidate. She seemed to think that all it took to win the Democratic nomination was being a women of color in a business suit with a credentialed resume. She always leaned into identity politics.

I'm also not sure how economic populism was supposed to help Warren secure the seal of approval from the establishment when an overemphasis on populism was precisely what alienated them from Sanders. If anything, she toned her populism down once she realized she wasn't going to be able to eat any more into Bernie's base and she was shoving away more moderate voters as she kept trying to make further headway. The only real problem her campaign faced in regards to bumbling idpol maneuvers was over the Native American DNA test debacle, and that happened early on, not later.

In the end it didn't matter, as I already mentioned in my previous post, nobody was going to able to thread the needle between knocking out every candidate between Biden and Bernie to become the third alternative pick that could consolidate establishment support. None of them succeeded in ascending above the others and coalescing the persuadable slices of the electorate. Harris was the only one that had any real chance of supplanting Biden early on since she was capable of attracting white liberals and moderates as well as getting the attention of the otherwise solidly pro-Biden blacks, but she blew it because her campaign didn't know what it was doing.  

[EJ24]

To be fair, he pretty much did collapse between November 2019 and late February 2020 when South Carolina and specifically Jim Clyburn revived his campaign.

The frontrunner status was:

Harris ---> Biden ---> O'Rourke? (maybe for 5 minutes) ---> Harris ---> Warren ---> Bernie ---> Buttigieg ---> Bernie .... then Biden won South Carolina and ran away with it on Super Tuesday, securing the nomination.

I think the main reason people thought his collapse was inevitable is because normally candidates who are thought to be *coronated* haven't done well as of late. Hillary Clinton in 2008 and 2016 for example. She lost one of those primaries and struggled badly in the other. Then of course Jeb! in 2016.

Biden was assumed to be the nominee as early as 2017, so I pretty much think that's the reason.

[Motorcity]

To be fair, he pretty much did collapse between November 2019 and late February 2020 when South Carolina and specifically Jim Clyburn revived his campaign.

The frontrunner status was:

Harris ---> Biden ---> O'Rourke? (maybe for 5 minutes) ---> Harris ---> Warren ---> Bernie ---> Buttigieg ---> Bernie .... then Biden won South Carolina and ran away with it on Super Tuesday, securing the nomination.

I think the main reason people thought his collapse was inevitable is because normally candidates who are thought to be *coronated* haven't done well as of late. Hillary Clinton in 2008 and 2016 for example. She lost one of those primaries and struggled badly in the other. Then of course Jeb! in 2016.

Biden was assumed to be the nominee as early as 2017, so I pretty much think that's the reason.

No disrespect, but your post is incredibly false

Biden was the front for the entire primary except for a few moments.

Never was Harris a front runner. After the first primary debate, she surged in a few early states but never replaced Biden as the front runner in national polling

Beto never went higher than third in national polls. He never had a presence in the early state polling either

Buttigieg was always 4th or 5th in national polling. Did he even break 5% nationally? And he polled 0% outside the early states

Warren tied with Biden in September 2019. She may have polled slightly higher for like a week or two nationally

The only time Biden wasn’t in the drivers seat was after the Nevada caucus when Bernie Sanders was the front runner

[brucejoel99]

The only time Biden wasn’t in the drivers seat was after the Nevada caucus when Bernie Sanders was the front runner

And even then, it wasn't really a case of "Biden was no longer in the driver's seat" so much as it was one of "somebody else finally wrestled the steering wheel away from him for once, if only for a second or 2." Remember, the NV debate was the real start of Biden's comeback: he finally did well at a primary debate for once, everybody was mostly distracted by Warren's castration of Bloomberg anyway, & then he was able to parlay it into coming in (an admittedly distant) 2nd in NV, which is - in tandem with his doing well at the SC debate too - what led to the Clyburn endorsement, which is what led to the SC blowout, which led to the Super Tuesday massacre, etc., & the rest is history. At best, the only point in time at which he'd truly lost the position of sole frontrunner was after his utter collapse in IA & NH, at which point their maxim became "start trying for once because in the name of all that is holy, we just need to make it to SC." And it worked.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The only time Biden wasn’t in the drivers seat was after the Nevada caucus when Bernie Sanders was the front runner

And even then, it wasn't really a case of "Biden was no longer in the driver's seat" so much as it was one of "somebody else finally tried to wrestle the steering wheel away from him." Remember, the NV debate was the real start of Biden's comeback: he finally did well at a primary debate for once, everybody was mostly distracted by Warren's castration of Bloomberg anyway, & then he was able to parlay it into coming in (an admittedly distant) 2nd in NV. At best, the only point in time at which he'd truly lost the position of sole frontrunner was after his utter collapse in IA & NH, at which point their maxim became "start trying for once because in the name of all that is holy, we just need to make it to SC." And it worked.

Biden was sorely underestimated by pretty much the rest of the entire field all the way until Super Tuesday.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I mean...he came 4th in Iowa and 5th in New Hampshire, and was haemorrhaging support to the late entrant Bloomberg before SC. But generally people underestimated the black vote's loyalty to Biden when no other candidate had a moderate/electability pitch coupled with ties to the black community through Obama. Maybe if Bloomberg decided to compete in SC Biden would have been dragged down somewhat. But even then he still probably wins and the non-Bernie candidates consolidate behind him as the indispensable man.

[Mr. Smith]

Because it was low energy and sad and the track record before was rather pathetic. It's just that everyone else were too busy trying to hit second or third place.

Good thing COVID swooped in and pretty much rewarded such low energy, or he truly would've blown it.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

A lot of people, myself included, thought his age would catch up to him. Personally, I also thought he might make some Todd Akin-level gaffe or that his history of touchy-feeliness would be a problem in the #MeToo era.

It kind of did, but he was running against 2 other mildly out-of-touch septuagenarians in the primary and general, so it might not have mattered that much.

[OSR stands with Israel]

The only time Biden wasn’t in the drivers seat was after the Nevada caucus when Bernie Sanders was the front runner

And even then, it wasn't really a case of "Biden was no longer in the driver's seat" so much as it was one of "somebody else finally wrestled the steering wheel away from him for once, if only for a second or 2." Remember, the NV debate was the real start of Biden's comeback: he finally did well at a primary debate for once, everybody was mostly distracted by Warren's castration of Bloomberg anyway, & then he was able to parlay it into coming in (an admittedly distant) 2nd in NV, which is what led to the Clyburn endorsement, which is what led to the SC blowout, which led to the Super Tuesday massacre, etc., & the rest is history. At best, the only point in time at which he'd truly lost the position of sole frontrunner was after his utter collapse in IA & NH, at which point their maxim became "start trying for once because in the name of all that is holy, we just need to make it to SC." And it worked.

Biden also won that South Carolina debate

[Orser67]

People have mentioned his age, gaffe-proneness, and the fact that he wasn't beloved by the media, but his fundraising was also pretty weak. That fundraising was important in and of itself, but also points to another issue he was perceived to have, which is that his support was broad but not deep.

As in 2016, there was also a self-fulfilling prophecy in that the other candidates didn't take him seriously enough and spent too much time fighting amongst themselves.

Also worth noting that (at least from my perspective, and as compared to Democrats in general) Atlas's 2020 presidential election board was EXTREMELY pro-Bernie and anti-"moderate Dem lane" in 2019 and early 2020.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Mostly because his campaign was fairly shallow and lacking in anything distinguishing him other than his name recognition as Obama's Vice President. To echo what RFKfan said, it turns out though, that may have been all he needed once South Carolina's primary came around and proved that black voters, even more than young progressives still, is the true bellwether demographic for Democratic primaries.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Also worth noting that (at least from my perspective, and as compared to Democrats in general) Atlas's 2020 presidential election board was EXTREMELY pro-Bernie and anti-"moderate Dem lane" in 2019 and early 2020.

Lol no it wasn't. Bernie supporters were in a minority and many of the regular posters were vocally anti. Here's a poll from January with the combined Bernie/Warren progressive lane at just under 50%.

Also interestingly here's a poll from the end of 2019 with 3/4 of posters saying Biden could still win after losing IA+NH+NV. And here's another poll with 75% of posters predicting he would win the nomination. So it's questionable whether he was in fact underrated on Atlas.

[Orser67]

Also worth noting that (at least from my perspective, and as compared to Democrats in general) Atlas's 2020 presidential election board was EXTREMELY pro-Bernie and anti-"moderate Dem lane" in 2019 and early 2020.

Lol no it wasn't. Bernie supporters were in a minority and many of the regular posters were vocally anti. Here's a poll from January with the combined Bernie/Warren progressive lane at just under 50%.

Also interestingly here's a poll from the end of 2019 with 3/4 of posters saying Biden could still win after losing IA+NH+NV. And here's another poll with 75% of posters predicting he would win the nomination. So it's questionable whether he was in fact underrated on Atlas.

The Atlas poll you linked shows Bernie at 31% and Biden basically tied with Warren in second at 15%. It also shows Bernie+Warren at about 47%. Compare that with RCP's polling averages in early January, which shows Biden with a clear lead over Bernie (~29% to ~19%), and which shows Bernie+Warren collectively at about 34%. So even the poll you linked shows that Atlas was clearly more pro-Bernie and more pro-progressive, and less pro-Biden, than the Democratic primary as a whole.

Also, here's a poll from September 2019 showing Atlas viewed Warren as the most likely nominee at that point (56%), with Biden at 34% and Sanders at 7%. Warren did even better in this October 2019 poll and remained in the lead in November 2019. She also led this August 2019 poll. I'd be interested to see polling from other months, but clearly for at least a good portion of 2019 this forum overestimated the chances of the progressive lane and underestimated Biden.